


365 Days

by MadiMay



Series: The Calla Universe, where nothing makes sense [4]
Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: (is that a thing????? IDK it just freaks me out kay??), Actually it's torture, And angst, Backstory to another fic, But could be read alone, Calla's traumatic backstory, Could You Tell?, I don't even know how to tag, I finally got around to it, I guess????, I had some fun writing it, It's Actually Pretty Good, It's just torture, Mentions of a past attempted rape, Past Child Abuse, Psychological Torture, The year of experimentation, There is no inappropriate touching here, Torture, a combo of my medical experimentation phobia, and eventually revenge, and my recent dabble in writting what essentially amounts to torture porn, except not porn, just pain, just torture, let's be real here, prequel???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-05-14 07:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19268263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiMay/pseuds/MadiMay
Summary: Calla fell asleep on her couch. She woke up strapped to a steel table. While she has made her fair share of enemies in her life, this person is not one of them. That detail doesn't seem to matter much in the end. Calla might well survive this, but it will not be without scars. It quickly becomes obvious though that the real question is not will Calla survive this, but rather will she still be Calla at all once this is over.





	1. 1, 2

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the product of my brain. I wrote all of this after around 51 hours without sleep in a span of three and a half hours. I now hate my computer chair and also myself a little. I'm going to bed now.

Calla jolted awake, eyes flying open as she gasped. Her hands scrambled at cool metal and stiff leather, panic rising, filling her chest as she realized she was trapped.

Calla gasped for air, eyes rolling as she struggled to move, to breath, to break from the restraints holding her.

No, no no no, oh god he’d found her. He’d found her and he’d taken her and he probably had Katie and Alex and Terry by now if he had her.

Calla grunted as she struggled harder, against the tight straps at her hands, her wrists, her forearms, her elbows, covering every joint and any point between them that might be able to move from head to foot. So securely strapped to the table that she couldn’t move her head or roll her wrists or wriggle her ankels.

Calla closed her eyes and tried to breath. Oh gods her father had her. And she was strapped down so tightly her body ached. The table under her was stainless steel, cold and hard, and the straps were stiff, new leather.

Calla managed to slow her heart and breathing, forcing herself to calm, to think. She was just starting to go through what she remembered last when the ‘click’, ‘click’, ‘click’, of someone strutting across tiled floors in high heels interrupted her thoughts.

Her mind stuttered to a stop, before picking up double speed, mind whirling as she considered. Either her father had found a new kink, a demented partner, or this was someone else. Calla’s gut clenched at that idea. Because, well, while Calla’s father was a monster, horrifying and vile, he was a known quantity. She knew why he hated her, she knew what he was apt to do to her or her siblings. She knew she could needle him in certain ways to manipulate him away from certain courses of action, or towards others.

If this was someone else, someone she didn’t have a childhood of watching and waiting and learning about, a childhood of knowledge of how they might break her, then that meant she had less control of this situation than her already scant amount.

A door opened and closed, and the heels clicked closer. The smell of something sickly sweet and icy wafted into her nose, and Calla opened her eyes in time to see a woman with her hair blue and spiked and iced over, skin and eyes pale, smile serenely at her.

She touched Calla’s cheek, and Calla felt as if that one movement took all the heat from her body, leaving her cold and gasping and afraid, all her hope of bravery and bravado, that at least she had control of herself, draining away with the heat as she vibrated with shivers.

The woman fingers brushed away tears from Calla’s cheeks, but at the same time seemed not to notice them. Calla’s skin felt frost-bitten and burned where she was touched.

The pale woman said as she stepped away, out of Calla’s sight, “I am only doing what is necessary. Don’t struggle, sweetheart, it will throw off my results.

The woman fiddled with something, then Calla felt the chill of a wet wipe along the inside of her elbow, and then the prick of a needle.

“I’ll get what I need from you for a better existence. A better me.”  
She leaned into Calla’s sight line again, and Calla felt the needle be removed.

“Self improvement is very important, and you’re just about perfect for helping me with a little of that. Thank you,” she said firmly to Calla.

Calla’s body began twitching against her will, and she felt rather than saw the woman begin to attach monitors and electrodes to her.

Calla closed her eyes and did her best to retreat into her mind.

The icy agony of whatever the woman had injected her with became a distant background hum as she shut herself off from her body, forcing herself to detach from it. It was only a hindrance now, and Calla had had practice in many things over her 17 years, but one of the most practical was in ignoring pain.

It wasn’t usually this hard, just sore feet or cuts and bruises, but still, Calla did her best to push through.

This was a situation unrelated to her father to the best of her knowledge. Just some strange, pale woman who wanted her for some reason. Calla needed to know why, needed to know more before she would be able to do anything. Luckily enough, though insane, the woman seemed chatty enough. Calla was good at many things, but one of the skills that came most naturally(if it was one of the least used), was getting people to talk.

Then, the pain, impossibly, hit harder, and Calla jerked against her restraints, snapping back to herself violently as she threw her head back as far as she could and _screamed_.

 

Calla couldn’t have said with any certainty when she woke. It was still bright, she was still strapped down, but she wasn’t in near as much pain as she had been.

A hand like dry ice, gentle and attempting soothing was drifting up and down her arm, and Calla mentally took stock past the soreness in every inch of her to be certain that nothing had been broken, to be certain this woman hadn’t helped herself to anything while Calla had been unawares before she let herself drop the rouse of sleep and groan.

The hand paused, before drawing back, and Calla whimpered, eyes fluttering open as she twisted and pulled against the cuffs.

Heat started pulsing back down Calla’s arm, and she groaned again, before the hand found her hair, twisting in tight, and Calla looked up at the woman looming over her.

“Do you need to use the restroom?”

Calla nodded slowly, and the woman nodded, eyes and hands flashing icily in warning before she started uncuffing Calla’s feet.

“I was worried you wouldn’t survive the first rounds of tests. None of the first girls died the first time around, and they were all much smaller and weaker than you. Though it could have been the new serum.”

Calla’s legs collapsed under her the instant they made contact with the ground, and she dropped.

The woman caught her, helping her to stand and shuffle forward despite the fact that Calla was very, very large, and, at the moment, most of her was not at all helping.

“Who are you?”

Her voice was throaty and raw from screaming, and the woman tutted, “You don’t know who I am? I would be insulted if I hadn’t seen the state you were living in before I took you.”

Calla’s skin pricked at the insult, shame and fury at this woman, this woman who knew nothing of her or what she had seen, but she allowed none of it on her face, nor did she speak as they walked.

The woman touched her hair again, sinking into the thick curls and combing experimentally as they ascended a set of steps, “I’m killer frost, sweetheart.”

Calla slumped heavily when Killer Frost leaned her against the wall to open a door, “So why did you take me? This isn’t your usual MO, is it?”

Killer Frost wrinkled her nose, “No, it isn’t. But the body I am in was not made for the level of power it now contains. I’m wearing a bit thin, so I’m looking for a new body. After all, we know that it can be done, and when needs must… True, there are other alternatives, but a new face would be convenient.”

Calla’s heart sank as Killer Frost helped her to her feet and into a bathroom, and told her as she helped her to the toilet and turned to leave her in private, “But first, you must become my equal.”

Calla sat for a moment, everything feeling fuzzy and impossible before she turned her attention to her surroundings and the immediate moment. She didn’t know how long she had alone, and it wouldn’t do to waste that time.

She relieved herself quickly, then stood and leaned against the wall, staring blankly as she thought.

Killer Frost wanted to imbue her with power, and then take her body. That was bad. But that meant she wouldn’t cause any injury to her that would last very long. That was good.

She took a few moments to ponder her situation, before flushing the toilet and washing her hands and exiting the small room.

Killer Frost appeared on her left side when she was only two steps out of the room, and caught her elbow in a grip like a vice that sucked all the heat out of her arm, leaving her weak and shuddering.

She still went slower to the table than Killer Frost’s pace, head down, body slow and clumsy, curls a limp curtain as her head. Acting the part of a scared, weak captive.

She needed every advantage she might have in this place.

So she looked through her hair, mapping out the space and everything that filled it. She let herself be strapped back in, let her eyes flutter and her head loll. She wasn’t strong enough to overpower Killer Frost, maybe not even smart enough to out think her.

But Calla had to try. Her sisters and brother were waiting for her. She couldn’t risk leaving them vulnerable. Couldn’t leave Katie without someone to watch her back.

So she had to be smart about this. Let Killer Frost think her afraid enough that the fear had declawed her. It would make the inevitable strike all the more deadly for the miscalculation.

Calla had done her time as a victim. She had been weak and compliant, and she had sworn to herself on a lonely side street, alone, clothes torn and face wet, limping back to Katie with the contents of a dead potential rapists wallet, she would never let herself be weak and compliant again.

She had started her time on the streets as a quiet, scared little girl. Someone else had emerged. Someone stronger, who did not flinch away from violence. She would not be going back to that scared little girl. Not now, not ever.

 

Calla spent days in a routine. Experiment, agony, timeless, impossible agony, being let up once she came back to herself and allowed to eat and use the restroom, and occasionally to shower. Check up, tests, more experiments. Rinse and repeat.

She lied, and she lied a lot. Killer Frost asked how she felt? She claimed dizziness and weak and sore muscles, claimed nausea long after it initially passed, claimed that every injection and experiment didn't chill her core and leave her achingly sharper, stronger. Didn't leave her twitching, not with the pain she claimed, but with the need to gouge her hands into this monsters eyes and rip, pull, rend.

She felt like she claimed after some experiments, and with those, she made herself much worse, slurred her words and didn't move, made herself look and act like it was so much worse than anything else, did her best to lead Killer Frost, just a little.

Killer Frost wanted her to be powerful? She would be. And then she would tear her apart, she would tear her apart for the fear and pain and for taking her from her siblings and for insulting her home and for the way she petted Calla's curls like they belonged to her already.

Calla would rip Killer Frost into pieces, she would. That thought was all that kept her going sometimes. But it did keep her going. Kept her looking for a way out.

She'd been there for 2 months when she saw her first opening.

Calla was smart, with good survival instincts. She should, she had paid for those instincts in pain and blood.

She had a near preternatural feel for timing of this sort. Exactly how to lash out, when to flee. But she couldn't escape if she didn't know all the variables.

She'd spent 2 months mapping this building between agony, watching and listening and forcing herself to endure the pain so she could figure out when Killer Frost slept. When she ate and worked on the chemicals and concoctions that now raced through her veins. When she might leave.

And this was the product of all those sleepless days and nights filled with strangled, silent screams.

It was only an instant but it was all that Calla had needed.

She had just been let up, and her legs were weak and she was spinning, spinning, spinning, but that was why it had to happen then. Killer Frost was gentle, less firm than she was when Calla was clean and aware. Trying to sooth away the agony she inflicted.

It was only an instant, halfway across the long room, passing the machines that were taken apart, scattered, when she spotted a length of pipe just close enough, rolled away from where Killer Frost had been fiddling with it.

So Calla formed a plan. One step, two. Three, four, five closer and Calla dropped.

She wasn't a small girl, and Killer Frost couldn't hope to hold her up without any help.

Calla fell, first to her knees, swaying, propping herself up with both arms as Killer Frost cried out.

Calla feigned gagging, used the guise of curling up and rocking forward with the force of it to disguise her wrapping one hand around the end of the pipe, hidden by her hair.

Calla felt Killer Frost get closer as she forced herself to convulse and gag and spit.

When she had to be close enough, Calla whirled to her feet and around, using as much force as she could gather both from her two armed baseball swing and the move to slam the pipe across Killer Frost's temple.

Calla saw a moment of shock cross the woman's face before it went slack and she dropped, her head bleeding sluggishly, and the entire upper left side of her face bright red and white in a way that Calla knew would leave hideous bruising.

Calla wavered, considering tying her up. It was a risk. If it turned out they wouldn't hold her, it wouldn't be worth it. It would slow her down….

Calla decided that the potential time it would give her if it worked outweighed the time it would take and snatched up a roll of fine wire.

It was quick work to wind the wire round and round a round. So tight Calla saw blood well around it.

Calla couldn't find it in herself to feel bad, not after _2 months_ of medical torture.

So she repeated the process on her ankles for good measure, then turned and scrambled as quickly.as her quaking legs allowed her down the length of the room and through the door that led to the offices. She thought.

She was going off tid bits of Killer Frost's chats that Calla had pieced together with what she had seen through open doorways, windows, and her knowledge of how buildings were usually set up, so it wasn't as if she'd been allowed to wander or look at blueprints.

She managed to get through the offices and out into the open air in under ten minutes, and cursed when she looked around.

She didn't know where they were, probably still Colorado or close to it, based on the evergreens surrounding her, but they were truly in the ass end of nowhere. The ass end of nowhere, with no one around to hear her screams. Probably miles and miles from the nearest house, let alone town, in case she got out.

Fuck.

Calla turned back to the building and punched out at the siding, rage dulling the pain as she screamed and took out her rage on the siding.

Fuck, Fuck, fuck. She wasn't prepared for this! She was used to stacked odds, but this was bullshit!

Calla came back to herself when the sharp pain of one of her knuckles cracking broke through the rage, and she drew back, suddenly all too aware of how stupid she was being.

Her temper got the better of her on occasion, but it was pure idiocy to waste time like this!

Calla shook out her hand as she turned to the drive that disappeared into the trees and started forward as quickly as she could.

 

Calla had been alternating between jogging and speed walking on her increasingly wobbly legs when she felt the prickle of eyes on the back of her neck.

She didn't let on that she felt it, though after a few moments she clambered down across the ditch next to the road and into the trees, and found a long, fairly thick tree branch that she quickly snapped the excess off of and continued forward, using it as a walking stick.

She heard the sound of air rushing and ice cracking, and Calla moved, diving out of the way gracelessly as blast of cold hit where Calla had just been.

Calla rolled to her knees, facing the threat, facing-

Not Killer Frost.

Her heart went cold and tight and still, and she was shoving herself to her feet, hand trembling and white-knuckled around the make-shift staff in her hand.

It was a girl, and she was a girl, no older than 18, white haired and blue eyed and empty inside.

Calla’s stomach revolted at how empty, how hollow she looked.

Calla held her empty hand up in a sign of peace, “Please, I don’t want to fight.”

The girl’s face didn’t show even a flicker of emotion, she was still and silent.

Calla took a step backwards, testing, and the girls arms shot up, blasting ice as Calla dropped.

Calla stood again, and took a step forward. No reaction.

Calla took another, and another, prepared to dive out of the way with each one, until she was only a foot from the hollow girl.

Calla reached a hand out, hesitating, slow, before she put two fingers to the pulse point of the girl and waited. And waited. And waited.

It felt like an eternity, but there came a feeble, slow pulse. Half of what it should be, if that, but it was there.

Calla withdrew a few steps, eyes wide, her stomach in knots, and whispered to the empty shell in a hushed, horrified tone, “What has she done to you?”

Then Calla swung the branch and knocked the girl out.

 

She didn’t get far before she encountered another empty girl, this one older, maybe 24, 25. Same coloring, same blank expression and hollow eyes.

Calla was able to dispatch her quickly enough now that she knew how they worked. Of course, that knowledge meant nothing when Killer Frost appeared out of nowhere and threw her into a tree with a blast of cold wind so powerful that before she blacked out, she heard the truck crunching under her weight.

 

When she woke again, Calla was back on the table, colder than she’d ever been.

Killer Frost was leaning over her, the place where Calla had hit her green and purple and blue, and she was furious, eyes narrowed, her hand around Calla’s bicep siphoning heat from her almost faster than she could make it, and her grip was bruising.

Calla almost flinched when Killer Frost hissed, “I’ve been kind to you so far, but you clearly can’t be trusted to play your part.”

Calla snarled, yanking against her restraints in an attempt to snap at Killer Frost, “I have no part in this!”

Killer Frost smirked, mean and feral and promising cruelty, “You don’t have a part in anything else either.”

Calla sneered, “You know nothing.”

The older woman’s free hand, the one not on her bicep shot out, capturing Calla’s chin in a grip so tight Calla could feel her perfectly manicured nails biting through her skin as she forced Calla to look at her, “Is that why you fought? For your siblings?”  
She scoffed, “You shouldn’t. I’ve been watching them. It’s not as if they miss you. You know, it took them a week and a half to notice you’d gone missing?”

Calla closed her eyes and jerked her head away, which resulted in the tearing of her flesh and the heat of blood seeping down to collect in the hollow of her throat.

Her voice was firm in its convictions even as every insecurity she had reared their heads when she said, “You’re lying. They love me. They’d notice sooner.”

Calla couldn’t see Killer Frost, but when she spoke, Calla just knew she had an ugly smirk on her face, mean and degrading, “That’s what you think? You were just a shield to them! A means to an end! They knew you’d do anything for them, and you did! You’re purpose was fulfilled! You’re loyalty is unfounded, unneeded, and unwanted! Do you honestly think they would be anything but glad you finally decided to leave?”

Calla shook her head, embracing the flashes of pain when her skin shredded under Killer Frost’s fingers before she took even that sensation away. But she didn’t open her eyes when she gritted out, “You’re wrong.”

Killer Frost’s laugh was chilling, and her heals began clicking away, “Fine. You want proof? I’ll get it for you.”

 

Calla didn’t sleep, but she did drift. It was all she had in this place, her mind. She’d be damned if she lost it.

She came back to herself when the sharp clicking of heals met her ears, though she feigned still being lost to herself.

She had lost one opportunity, but there would be others. She had to believe that there would be others, if she didn’t, she didn’t know if she would survive this.

Killer Frost’s pace slowed when she reached the table, then stopped somewhere to Calla’s left. Her arm was still cold and numb from where Killer Frost had been holding it, and she could feel the marks from Killer Frost’s nails scabbing over.

If nothing else she couldn’t pick at her wounds like this. They’d be less likely to scar.

Calla only just resisted the urge to shudder when Killer Frost’s hand sank into her hair, sifting the strands between her fingers and drawing one out to twirl until it dropped, then repeating the motion.

It made Calla sick, how casually she touched her. Not in the way Katie or a friend or family member might, soothing and gentle, not how a lover might, playful or loving, or even in the way her father or enemies had, pulling until parts of her scalp had ripped. Instead it was how one might touch a wig, or ones own hair when considering something.

Thoughtless, proprietary, possessive.

She hated it. She hated it and Killer Frost and the place so much it was a freezing cold burn of a chill in her core, a slow, creeping thing, something like the setting of a glacier, something that would take thousands of years to dissipate. Impossibly big and inevitable. Like the setting of permafrost in the arctic.

Killer Frost backed off, crossing the roof, opened a cabinet, and Calla opened her eyes to watch as Killer Frost pulled out a-

Calla’s lips quivered. It was silly, that this of all things would be what made her cry. She’d been tortured, she’d been poked and prodded and experimented on, but save for that first day, she hadn't cried. She'd screamed, she'd writhed, she'd plotted and thrashed and raged. But shr had not cried. No tears had escaped her eyes. But as Killer Frost’s eyes gained a cruelly gleeful gleam when she saw Calla’s own were watery, Calla knew that it would be.

Calla probably should have fought. If she cared enough to cry over it she should care enough to fight.

But she was so, so tired suddenly. She wanted nothing more than to go home. She wanted her room and her bed and Katie braiding her hair as Alex sat at their kitchen table and puzzled out math aloud.

So Calla didn’t fight as Killer Frost sheared her hair so close to her head that the electric razor nicked her scalp and left it red in placed. But she did close her eyes, and she did hate herself for the steady stream of silent tears that coursed in twin streams down her temples.


	2. Chapter 2

Killer Frost’s experiments were hitched to another, feverish pitch of pain after that. Calla shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew(god did she know) that no matter how far down you were, there was always room to fall. Always. And she knew that Killer Frost was pissed at her after the escape attempt. And right now, Killer Frost was all but her god.

Those three things made it pretty fucking obvious that she should have expected the glee with with Killer Frost delivered her into agony unlike anything she’d ever known.

But somehow, somehow she’d been hopefull enough, stupid enough, naive enough, to think that maybe, just maybe it was as bad as it could get already.

She’d been proven wrong. So, so very wrong.

 

Killer Frost’s smile was a poison when Calla awoke from her doze, jolting against her restraints at the other woman’s face so close. Her bruise’s were dark, and her eyes were the coldest they’d ever been. 

The smell of her was invasive and sickening, something as cool as mint but sour-sweet like the taste left in your mouth after eating bad chocolate.

Killer Frost grinned, and said as she began chaining her, “We’ve got a lot to do today, Calla, up, up! First I’ll be showing you the proof, since you need it so badly. Then, I have a few new experiments planned.”

Calla’s heart stuttered at the words, but she didn’t reply as Killer Frost went about attaching shackles around her wrists and ankles, the chains looped in such a way that Killer Frost could tug and she’d be forced to a crouch, wrists to ankle until given slack once more.

Precautions after the escape attempt

Killer Frost undid the rest of her restraints swiftly, then backed away from the table, and as Calla was sliding to her feet, yanked hard enough on the chain to have her joints slamming together with bruising force, and her crashing to the ground with an audible ‘oomph’.

Calla groaned, and rolled to her knees. Killer Frost laughed, and pulled again, hard enough to pull her closer and tighten her bonds, but not hard enough to send her toppling again.

Calla resisted the urge to snarl and lunge for Killer Frost’s throat with her teeth only with the knowledge it wouldn’t do any good. This was one step up from a collar, barely.

Killer Frost must have seen it written across her face, because everything was suddenly cold and distant, and Killer Frost leaned in, and hissed, “Just try it. I’m more powerful than you, I’m better trained than you, I have more fighting experience than you. The only reason you got in that hit was because you surprised me. Clever, but it won’t happen twist. Next time, I’ll cut my losses and freeze you solid.”

Calla’s stomach churned, and she forced herself to jerk her chin in a nod.

Killer Frost nodded, “Good. Now come on.”

 

As Calla watched blankly, pictures of her family smiling filtered across the screen before her. A police report that pondered why it took so long for anyone to report her missing, pictures of cork boards she recognised from shops and cafes, of her streets, of places she recognised and places she didn’t, pointedly missing missing person’s posters.

It meant nothing. Katie was caring for three of their siblings. It meant nothing, Katie and Alex have both made it clear that posters are useless when looking for things, people are too self-involved to notice if a missing person was sitting in a car across the street. It meant nothing, the police are useless, a last resort, made up of power hungry assholes who didn’t care how many lower class, poor, blatently non-white girls go missing, as long as the pretty blonde who goes to a private school got media attention. It meant nothing, her family smiled through hard times, that’s nothing new, it's how they survived.

This all meant nothing. Together, it meant nothing. They care, they miss her. They have to. So Calla watched from behind an emotional wall that put miles between herself and her body. It meant nothing

 

Killer Frost dragged her into a freezer, and strapped her to another table, this one propped up, and put in IVs. One for each of her arms, one for each of her legs. One in her throat, one at the bottom of her rib-cage. In her shoulders, her hips, her feet, her hands.

Half of the bags were filled with something white-blue that burned her it was so cold as Killer Frost turned the temperature in the freezer to match, and the other half began to fill slowly with her life's blood.

Calla felt blood trickling from her lip as she bit it until it bled to keep from screaming.

As she retreated into her mind, Calla began a mental chant to keep herself sane.  _ It means nothing. _

It didn’t last long before she could no longer hold herself in the distant, mental space she used to survive the beatings and lectures. It didn’t last long before the screaming started.

The ice was in her veins, her muscles, her very bones, and she could feel it invading her, shoving in and twisting as she writhed and screamed. Every last cell of her body felt like it was being frozen and burned at once, and there was no escape as she choked and gasped for air.

There was no adjusting, no fleeing, no hiding in her own mind, only the impossible agony that made her want to crawl out of her own skin, to kill, bleed, die, anything, so long as it just  _ stopped _ .

Her own shrieks and cries of pain sounded forgin and animalistic to her own ears, choked off and gargled as they were.

Her heart was pounding a frantic, uneven, rhythm in her ears, and she distantly hoped that it would stop, just stop so to end this.

Time seemed to stop, or perhaps to stretch, in the spell of pain she was trapped in. All she knew, all Calla would ever know, was that it lasted too long, longer than any creature should ever have to endure.

When the pain began to wind to a more manageable torment of ice grinding through her veins, Calla became aware of blood, cool and thick, dribbling out of her mouth, the shade more purple than she was used to seeing.

It was pooling on the floor, she could see, head lolled forward and slumped against the leather straps, a slow ooze of sour spittle and saliva mixed with blood.

Her brows knotted, and her breath was suddenly too much work, a stuttering, heavy thing in her chest.

Killer Frost giggled close by, and a hand far less cold than it should have been caught the nape of her neck, forcing her to gaze as Killer Frost as she disengaged the IV’s and began to take her vitals.

“That looked like fun.”

Calla made a soft whimpering sound, and even that burned her throat. She realized in a slow, uncensored way, that that was where the blood had come from. She’d screamed so loudly and with so much force that it had started her throat bleeding.

She grimaced, smacking her lips at the copper taste in her mouth, with a new mild, too-sweet after taste.

Killer Frost laughed at whatever face she was making, and began to undo Calla’s restraints.

“I hadn’t expected you to survive that,” Killer Frost said casually, watching with an amused tilt to her features as Calla collapsed in a heap, unable to hold herself up without her restraints.

Calla didn’t move, couldn’t move or speak, could only tremble and twitch and pray for the grinding of ice in her veins to stop.

“You’re heartbeat is the same, and you’re temperature is much higher than I expected. How are you feeling?”

Calla’s labored breath was her only reply, and she felt Killer Frost leaned in close, the frost of her breath against the ridge of Calla's ear.

Calla seized, bile forcing its way up her throat as that single sensation overwhelmed her frayed and frazzled nerves, the over-sensitivity that pumped through her peaking at the tickle of breath over her ear and nape and scalp.

Killer Frost didn't laugh, but Calla could feel her merciless grin as Calla vomited bile tinged with her blood.

There was the clinking of metal behind her, and Calla dry-heaved, entire body rocking and seizing, before a cold hand clasped her nape.

Killer Frost pulled her back hard, and she bent painfully until her head was vertical to her feet, and then a little more, and Calla’s knees were shredded against concrete as she was yanked back, and her hands came up, and clasped around Killer Frost’s wrist in a desperate attempt to steady herself.

Killer Frost sneered, and Calla felt the coolness of chains around her throat, before she was dropped again.

Calla fell back onto her ass, legs folded up under her in a way that hurt like hell, but she was too dizzy to even think of moving.

There was movement, and something tight around her throat, and then Calla was drifting.

 

Calla woke to electricity in her veins and blood in her mouth. Mercifully, she was only awake for scant moments before the pain forced her under again.

 

When she woke next Calla was on a cot, hooked up to several IV’s, that upon further inspection, held saline and a nutrient solution, and with electrodes against her chest and scalp. She was cold, shivering, in a freezer, and chained. She remained conscious for 139 breaths after her sight cleared and she had inspected her surroundings to the best of her ability. She returned to merciful unconsciousness after that.

 

Calla came to in a wheelchair with Killer Frost glaring at her.

After several minutes she registered that the older woman was threatening to put in a catheter if she didn’t use the restroom herself, so Calla stumbled into the room, used the toilet and gave herself a sponge bath with a towel from the cabinet.

Calla’s knees gave out when she turned to leave the bathroom, and she dragged herself to the door, just managed to open it before she blacked out.

 

Calla woke to Killer Frost frowning over her, and drifted off only seconds later, even as she felt herself swallow down some kind of food.

 

Calla came too with Killer Frost’s face in a snarl of rage, and her words echoing in Calla’s ears as she worked at a table beside Calla’s slab, prepping a needle full of red with sharp, clinical movements.

“I won’t let you die, you’ve survived too much for this too kill you. I refuse, I can learn more from you.”

Calla whimpered, and Killer Frost’s eyes darted to her, vicious, “No, I’m not done with you yet. You can die once I’ve wrung every drop of knowledge from you, until then, you will live.”

There was the slick swipe of a wet-wipe in her elbow, and the pinch of a needle. A flash of warmth in her veins, and Calla gasped and nearly sobbed when it faded quickly, making the agony of the cold all the worse for it. Her heart ached, thumping too hard and too fast to try and make up for her blood going thick.

Calla moaned in pain and wondered how she was still alive. She didn’t think she wanted to be anymore.

Killer Frost’s smile matched her name, and she crossed the room, grabbing an IV stand and stiriding back towards her as Calla drifted again.

 

Calla spent the next several weeks drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness, between agony and numbness, and confusion and fear at the flashes of ice and fire grinding through her veins.

She used the bathroom once, and didn’t eat at all. Every time she woke Killer Frost was looming over her, face twisted in an expression of smug, satisfied malice and whispering poison into her ear. About her life, her meaning, her family, her friends, her home. She never stayed conscious for long.

 

When Calla came too, she wasn’t nearly so cold. Oh sure, she was still shivering, the air around her at least 20 degrees too cold for comfort, but she was warmer than she had been in what felt like years. Her core wasn’t as warm as it should be, still felt like it if went much lower her blood would return to sludge in her veins, but it was warm enough that it felt like a blessing. Like a gift.

Calla shuddered, shoving that thought away. None of this was a gift. None of it. She should be home, with…. She should be home. None of this should be happening, and none of it was a gift. Not a damned thing. She wouldn’t let herself be twisted into thinking it was.

Calla jerked when she felt a cold hand wrap tight around her bicep, pulling it against the restraints, and she opened her eyes.

Killer Frost grinned down, “You look much better.”   
Calla bared her teeth and balled her hands into fists and wished she could hit Killer Frost, and could keep hitting her until blood coated her knuckles.

The bruises from her escape attempt had been gone for some time now, but Calla had a hazy memory of her time drifting of them as yellow shadows that seemed like it hadn’t been so long ago, so Calla would estimate it had been maybe a month since her escape attempt, but she couldn’t be sure.

For some reason, that made her absolutely furious, more so than anything else that had happened. She had been kidnapped, tortured, and violated in every way but sexually. But the thing that had her aching to fight, to stretch and kick and bite and beat Killer Frost to death slowly and brutally was the fact that she actually had no idea how long she had been here for. She had a guess, somewhere between four and five months(and god it made her anger burn hotter that her siblings had been in the dark about her safety for that long), but really, honestly it could have been much, much longer. And that unnerved and enraged her.

Calla made a silent promise to herself that the next chance she would get, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave Killer Frost alive like she had last time. She’d never killed someone before when there had been another option, any other option, but Calla was suddenly aware that she had been very, very naive to think that she would escape this place, this horrible, violent woman, while Killer Frost still lived

There was a violent jolt of wanting that struck Calla through to her core. She wanted Killer Frost’s blood on her hands and her face in pieces under her fists.

Killer Frost obviously saw that longing, recognised it, and she struck out so fast that Calla didn’t think she could have blocked or dodged if she had been free.

Her hand hit Calla higher than she expected it to, slapping her across the side of her head and her temple with so much force that the only thing that kept her from rolling off the table were the leather straps, which groaned in protest for a moment.

Killer Frost laughed, and hit her again, before turning away.

“I was thinking of giving you a break, but if you’re in such a fighting mood, you’re clearly ready for the next round of experiments.”

Calla grit her teeth around the begging that wanted spill from her lips and berated herself. Begging wouldn’t do anything, Killer Frost didn’t know mercy well enough for it to mean anything. And besides that, she was Calla Penelope Dixon, and she would  _ never _ beg. It would be an insult to not only herself, but her mother and siblings.

So Calla lay still as Killer Frost hooked electrodes up to her chest and scalp and put a rubber mouth guard between her teeth.

Then, as Calla watched, Killer Frost turned dials higher than she ever had before, and hit the power switch.

Calla didn’t even try to hold herself apart from the pain as  _ ‘burninghotnopleasestopfuckcantnononononopainpainpainelectricbadstopwrong’ _ ripped through her being. It wouldn’t have worked, this electric, too-intense pain shattered through her, left her convulsing and twitching and screaming around the mouth guard when Killer Frost gave her brief moments of recovery so to not damage her heart as she writhed and screamed and prayed for the mercy of unconsciousness or death. At this point, she didn’t much care which came for her, as long as one came soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who doesn't remember writing half of this?

It had been at the very least three months since she’d regained her awareness enough to begin counting time again, and Calla was beginning to loose her mind. Time was a fickle, slippery thing when there was little but pain and unconsciousness and no way to tell if there was snow on the ground outside or not. Calla knew she had been in this place, this horrible, maddening place with no company other than Killer Frost for at least 11 months, probably more. She didn’t entirely believe she would survive much longer.

They had fallen back into a pattern, one that put the pain of anything she’d previously experienced to shame. Her father beating her down mercilessly for the first 15 years of her life mentally and physically and claiming it was out of love? That felt like accidentally cut her finger while cooking compared to this. The fights she’d gotten into since they’d gotten out, being beaten black and blue, cut open and thrown around for being caught with her hands where they shouldn’t be until she learned to fight back, it was candle wax burning her flesh in the instant before it cooled.

This, this was true agony. This was hell, designed especially for her.

In what she had to assume was the morning, she was unstrapped,put on the end of one of the tightening collars on the end of the rod that animal control used for aggressive dogs, and forced to hunch over as she walked, as she was fed and hung from chains, forced to watch and listen as Killer Frost showed her evidence that her siblings didn’t miss her and whispered poisoned words into her ears. If Killer Frost suspected she wasn’t paying close enough attention, she made her regret it, and it quickly became obvious she didn’t care if Calla gained scars from it.

Tasers, one day. Cutting open her elbow and pressing against that one nerve that sent screaming burning pain shooting through her. A brand to her knee, to the arch of her foot that sent pain up her legs when she walked, choking her with chains, beating her like one might a punching bag as she swung wildly from the hook that held her.

For the months since she’d regained consciousness, she was a mass of walking bruises and burns and pains, only a few of which came from her experiments.

Once Killer Frost was satisfied with the amount of mental and emotional pain applied for the day, Killer Frost stripped her down, and hozed the sweat and grime and tears off with a freezing water at such a pressure it felt like it would break through her flesh at any moment, leaving her shivering and bruises and her skin over-sensitive and almost raw as she was given a small towel to dry off with and tossed back her clothes, which did nothing to help as she was allowed to use the restroom and dragged back to either the main table or the one in the freezer.

And then she was lost to needles and electricity and transfusions and surgeries she couldn’t guess the purpose for, could only close her eyes and do her best to hold herself apart from the slicing and beeping of her heart monitor and the smell of her flesh burning when parts of her were cauterized and welcome unconsciousness when it came for her.

Today was like any of the other days, except that something in Calla broke when she was laid down and Killer Frost strapped her down in the freezer, and turned to prep a needle.

Laying there, staring at the ceiling, cold creeping into her body, what little hair that had grown back freezing on her scalp and her ears feeling as if they would fall off, something tiny and vital deep inside of Calla shattered into a million little pieces.

Her blue-tinged lips parted, cracked and dry and the voice that came from her was throaty and hoarse and sounded nothing like her as she croaked out, incapable of keeping the words from escaping.

“When I get free of this, I’m going to wrap my fingers around your throat and choke you out.”

Calla wondered, distantly, what the actual hell she was doing, speaking this way to a woman who, at present, could do anything she wanted to her. Who could kill her and no one would ever know. Who could make all of this worse, if she chose to.

Killer Frost turned to glance at her, brows raised and smile condescending before she turned back to the vials she was examining.

“Are you?”

Calla’s teeth were chattering and she wanted to hit herself, but she couldn’t keep herself from continuing in a considering, light voice, “But I don’t think I’ll kill you right then. If I get the opportunity to, I’ll hurt you first. In every single way that you’ve hurt me. Of course, I won’t make it last that long. I want you dead more than I want you in pain, but I want to see the moment you pray for death like I have before that happens.”

Killer Frost chuckled, and Calla continued as she turned towards her and wiped the inside of her elbow with alcohol, “I always have had a bit of an unhealthy love for knives though, so maybe I’ll do it that way, cut open your femoral arteries and watch your face as you bleed out.”

Killer Frost cut her off with a stream of genuinely amused giggles as a needle pierces her arm, but didn’t say anything, simply retreated to watch as Calla’s muscles convulsed and she jerked, going rigid and twisting against her restraints and threw her head back, screaming. It felt like a million insects made of ice and fire had burrowed into her and we trying to eat her from the inside out, starting with her nerves and muscles.

Calla thrashed and screamed and mentally searched for anything but pain.

She found rage.

So she screamed, barely understandable through the screams and cries and grunts of pain, but she did. She screamed threats and fantasies of blood and gore, some so dark she stunned herself into a moment of silence broken only by her own groans and pants. Then, another wave of agony would crest over her, crashing down, threatening to bury her under the weight of it, to break her. So Calla reached again, and again, and again. Every time, all she found was rage, and so she embraced it, screaming and snarling and trashing.

She knew, deep down, distant part of herself there should be something else. Spite for her father and love for her siblings and her own want to succeed. She should have something else, anything else to keep her going along side the pain, to ground and steady her through this.

But she didn’t. Not this moment, not in this place. Here, there was only anger. Only the images of Killer Frost, bloody, screaming, dead, to pull her through. So she used them. She described them, in vivid, crystal clear detail, and hoped that Killer Frost understood that when Calla was free, when her next escape attempt came, she would not fail again.

Hoped that Killer Frost understood that she had chosen to take the wrong girl. Hoped that she understood that Calla would not break under the pressure of pain, but sharpen. And she hoped that Killer Frost understood that when Calla was freed, Killer Frost was completely and utterly screwed, and it was her own damn fault.

 

The screaming became part of her routine. Calla had always known she had a way with words, but she was honestly, genuinely afraid of herself, just a little, at some of the images she painted with shrieked words. Calla tried to ignore the way Killer Frost petted her scratchy scalp through it and gazed down at her with satisfaction and what might have been pride when the pain faded enough for her vision to clear, for her to get a glimpse of those pale eyes before she went back under.

Calla tried to ignore the way she shook under the slightest strain, loosing strength to long days doing nothing but laying on a table and writhing for hours and hours and hours.

Calla tried to ignore how, with each injection and shock and spray of cold water, something icy and immovable bloomed inside her, unfurling into each of her limbs, sinking into every part of her, and how her mind increasingly dwelled on the violent and gory. Calla tried to ignore it all.

 

Calla lay still and silent on her table, eyes closed, breathing even and slow and her heartbeat much the same, doing her best to feign sleep. It was night, according to the darkness outside of the windows she could see when she craned her head, and Killer Frost wasn’t with her. Probably asleep, but Calla had done her best to slip her body into a state close enough to sleep that the heart monitor wouldn’t know the difference, just in case Killer Frost could be alerted by that somehow.

Calla couldn’t risk it. She had woken different, this time. She had woken changed, and Killer Frost would know the moment she saw the new coloring of her skin.

Calla had almost had a panic attack when she’d glanced down and seen her skin had gone so pale it damn near glowed in the darkness, but she’d contained herself, forced herself to remain calm enough to think. To consider her options.

The way she’d changed was enough of an indication for Calla that she might have developed powers, and she… She could not, could not,  _ could not _ , let Killer Frost see her this way, to know. So her options were to use them to run, to run and run and run and never let herself be found, or somehow, some way, go back to how she was.

Because Calla wouldn’t, couldn’t let Killer Frost know she’d been successful. She couldn’t let her hollow her out, take out everything inside her that was  _ Calla _ , and put something else in. Be it a mindless control over her, like those girls, or Killer Frost herself, Calla couldn’t let that happen. She would die first.

So, eyes closed and body calm, Calla found the big red button that hadn’t been there before. One that she knew on instinct would change her irreversibly, and she hesitated only a moment, only for a second, before she shoved down, and cold exploded out.

But this time, this time it wasn’t torture. It wasn’t something wrong and impossible being pumped through her veins and piercing her flesh and bleeding her out. This time, it was all her. All Calla’s own rage and despair and misery and her own need to get out, getout _ getout _ coming to a head in a violent display of will.

The leather and metal holding her froze and crumbled, the lights that lit up her vision behind her eyelids flickered and shattered, stone creaked and air screamed and windows fell apart and Calla knew with a sudden clarity as she sat up in the remains of her shackles and bed for the past however long this had been that, if she wanted to, if she chose to, Calla could destroy the planet this way. That no one, no one could ever hurt her again. 

So Calla closed her eyes and alarms sounded and a door banged open somewhere in the building, closed her eyes and held that spark of power that had already freed her close to her heart, fanning it into a flame. Calla stood, and Permafrost opened her eyes.

 

Calla came too standing alone, just outside of the building that had held her for so long, covered in blood and ash, watching it burn.

She didn’t know if Killer Frost was dead. She didn’t know the date or how long it had been since she’d eaten or where she was or what to do when she got back to civilisation. But she did know, even if she didn’t know how, that there was a car in a small garage around the west side of the building, and that there was a small town ten miles south of her.

She wanted to stay for a moment, for two, three four, fifteen, thirty, an hour. To watch this place burn. But Calla wasn’t stupid. And she didn’t know if Killer Frost was dead, couldn’t be sure. So she turned, and started for the car.

Now was as good a time as any to learn how to hotwire a vehicle. 


	4. Chapter 4

The street was dark and quiet as any street, and the night was as dark and calm as any night. There was nothing strange about the scene at a first or second glance. No cars driving by slowly, no figures lingering on the edge of ones vision.

But, there was someone there. Hidden in a pine tree, a woman lurked. One would be hard pressed to spot her, even if they knew to look. No one did. She was pale, with skin the color of snow and eyes the color of back-lit ice and hair so blonde it was almost white. She wore dark colors. A dark grey pair of jeans, an olive green hoodie that was pulled down to conceal her coloring, and black hunting boots that laced up her calves.

Her shoulders were set in a way that, if another person was around to see it, they might have thought her hurt. Her fingers trembled inside her hoodie pocket where she had them clenched around a phone.

It had taken her almost 4 weeks to get to this, to get home, to set her eyes on her siblings, safe and happy as she stayed distant, kept them safe from the cold surrounding her. But now here, Calla couldn’t make herself make the call, to test how much of what Killer Frost had said was a lie.

A well experienced detective would be able to tell she’d been watching the house her eyes were glued to for several days, waiting and watching for danger, for a sign. She would not find one, a detective or a sign, for a good amount of time yet.

She was trying to decide what to do.

She was afraid, twitchy and nevous, as a person of any calaber was apt to be after over a year of captivity, torture, and experimentation. This woman was not a weak woman, and she was holding it together better than most, but she would not deem herself safe to be around for quite some time yet, so that meant very little to her.

There was the soft crackling that signalled the spreading of ice and frost under her hands, and Calla pulled out her phone, sealing her determination and dialing the only phone number of any living person she had memorised.

It rang one, twice, three times, before it was picked up by the woman in the house Calla was watching.

Calla’s voice was raspy from disuse when she spoke, and she barely recognised it herself.

“Katie. It’s Calla. I’m alive.”

Katie went still by the living room window, and Calla watched as her face twisted, something bitter and terrified and longing before it smoothed out into anger.

“Shut the fuck up, don’t call this number again.”

Katie hung up, and turned to check the locks on the windows and doors one last time before she would let herself hide in her room to mourn her lost sister.

Calla was gone, vanishing down the street before Katie made it to the front door

Calla didn’t know where she was going to go, but she’d figure something out. For all that she was a pack animal, Calla was a survivor first and foremost. Her sister's rejection wouldn’t change that. It wouldn’t.

 

Calla stood at the edge of a very, very large body of water, her converse lay abandoned a few yards behind her, socks stuffed inside, and her duffle at the beginning of the beach, stashed under the wood boards that lead down to the sand.

She’d run that night, and she’d kept running until she’d run out of land to run on.

So she lingered here, powers stretched out around her to alert her of anything or anyone that might be coming.

She might have been tempted to dip her toes in the water, to imagine the chill was enough to invigorate her anymore. But she knew, at her temperature, it wouldn’t.

She would have run west. She knew those areas' better, had spent enough time in California and Oregon and every state between them and Colorado to not feel completely out of her depth, but she was running, and not just from her family. 

A shiver ran through her as Calla thought back to the night she had learned Killer Frost was alive.

She’d been laying in the bed of a hotel room, rented using money she’d stolen from a rich asshole too busy looking at her breasts to realize the closeness hadn’t been flirting, flicking through the news channels when she’d landed on a broadcast talking about how the Flash had arrested Killer Frost, the face that haunted her nightmares staring out of the screen, knowing and smirking and Calla had only just made it to the toilet in time to empty her stomach.

Calla knew logically that moving wouldn’t help, she knew it was only a waste of money, but it hadn’t mattered, she’d packed up and fled before the broadcast had finished playing.

And she’d ended up here. Here, in Gotham. Calla made a face and took a few steps back, turning to stride back to her shoes, shaking away the urge to dip her feet into the water. Knowing Gotham just thinking about it would give her some horrible disease.

With a shake of her head Calla tied her shoes, collected her bag, and started off to find the cheapest motel she could.

 

Calla snarled as a fist to her cheek sent her spinning back, spitting blood as she went and jerking herself upright as she glared at the man who had hit her, raising her own fists in defense as she darted back in.

She’d had training in fighting, of course. It had been the only thing that let her get any sleep at all after they’d left their father, the self defense classes she had crammed into every spare moment she had, but that was hardly going to help her here, against this man, who she had an inkling might be quite a bit more dangerous than she’d anticipated.

Calla blocked another blow on her forearm and struck out with her other fist, catching the man in the throat even as he tried to block.

He groaned and his hand twisted, grasping her forearm and using it to send her into a nearby wall. She gasped as she hit it, felt something in her ribcage loosen painfully, and threw herself back up with pure will power as she looked around wildly for her attacker, gasping as she brought her arm around her ribs protectively. It didn’t hurt, not really. Killer Frost had given her an entirely new scale for pain that this barely registered on, but if she tried to fight with this she’d damage herself worse.

Luckily, she didn’t have to. It seemed one of Gotham’s many vigilantes had intervened.

She wasn’t sure who exactly, didn’t really care except that.. Hello, yes, thank you for wearing skin tight spandex-leather-pleather whatever the fuck that was.

Calla took one moment to stare at his ass, another long moment to appreciate the broad shoulders and muscles that flexed as the man flipped to deliver a kick. 

Then the man she’d been fighting was down, and the masked man was turning to her. Her heart and breathing both stopped, then her heart sped up when his white, masked eyes fell on her, every instinct she’d ever honed and a few she hadn’t screaming at her.

He looked her up and down, and she stood firm, wiggling her jaw and spitting another mouthful of blood from her bitten tongue and split lip to the pavement.

The man’s eye-slits widened and he didn’t step forward, probably seeing the slightly feral way she eyed him, but he did ask, “Are you okay?”

She gave him a grin she knew was pink with blood, and shifted back a step, “I’m fine. I’ve also gotta be going.”

She turned and walked up the street. When she turned the corner she ran. She broke into an all out sprint and ran and ran and ran until she ended up in a tiny, desolate alley where she could have a panic attack in private. And try to ignore how only two people she’d ever laid eyes on had ever set off all of her alarm bells that way before.

 

Two weeks and three fights later saw Calla fleeing Gotham. Well, less fleeing, and more, relocating. Because, finally, finally after weeks of aimless wandering, she had a goal. And to achieve that goal, Calla had to learn to fight better. So, she was going to seek out her favorite hero, the Black Canary, and hope to god that she would agree to train her.

So, she’d been watching the news, following every lead she could possibly find, and she’d figured out a plan.

So, here she was, tucked into a shadow on a rooftop frequented by Star City’s vigilante’s, silent and still as death as she waited. And waited. And waited.

For hours she stayed there, until her limbs cramped and her muscles ached, but she didn’t so much as twitch. By the time anything happened, it was almost 5am, and Calla was considering leaving to go to bed.

Then, there was a flash of movement, and the one and only Black Canary was walking towards her, eyes narrowed and focused on her in the pale light of the dawn.

Calla jolted upright, stumbling at the pins and needles in her limbs and damn near falling back off the roof before the other woman’s hand flashed out, catching in Calla’s collar and reeling her in.

Once in the light, the Canary’s face softened, and she cupped Calla’s cheek so gently that Calla barely flinched at the echo of Killer Frost’s touch.

Her voice was soft and gentle when she spoke, “How old are you?”

Calla’s breath was to hard and fast and shallow in her ears, and she heard herself answer as her vision narrowed and tunneled outward, “19 Ma’am.”

The woman tutted, and then frowned with concern when Calla’s breathing sped up and she was suddenly gasping, floundering with a panic attack as the Black Canary helped her sit with her head between her knees and coached her breathing.

When her breathing slowed and Calla felt like she wasn’t in danger of having her heat break through her ribs on a desperate bid for escape from her chest, the Black Canary asked, “What are you doing up here?”

Calla swallowed and answered, “I wanted to ask you to teach me to fight.”

Her brows drew together, and she sat back on her heels, staring at Calla, “Why?”

Calla wet her lips, and her eyes darted, before she closed her eyes and sighed, “Theres… There’s a few reasons. And none of them are short. Suffice it to say I spent the last year being tortured, and I don’t want anyone to be able to have that kind of power over me again.”

A beat of silence, then a sigh, “Come on. Lets get breakfast and you can tell me the long version.”

Calla nodded and stood, opening her eyes and following Black Canary. If she would listen, she might teach her. She only needed to be patient.

 

Dinah stared at the young woman sitting across from her, avoiding eye contact, fingers drawing patterns in frost across the table top and watching them melt absently before something… living came back to her eyes and she jolted minutely, swiping up the water and lowering her hands into her lap.

Her heart ached more than a little for her. She was tall and skinny, so, so skinny. The type of thinness that came from eating what you were given and it never being enough. 

She leaned back, eyes flickering like a dying candle, and Dinah reached across the table, brushed her fingers across the icy back of her hand.

“Tell me as much as you can, but do not push yourself past your limits.”

Calla nodded, took a deep breath, and started speaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, to clarify, Katie thinks that the phone call is a sick joke mocking her(assumed) dead sister and Is Not Having It. Calla understands when she finds out, but like... Someone who just escaped from extremely traumatic captivity with PTSD from domestic abuse prior to said captivity who is trying to reach out and is shot down by someone they thought they could trust is not something someone just forgets, and it seriously messes up their relationship. Like both would still die for each other, but it never quite gets back to where it was. Might write something focusing on that at some point.  
> Also Dinah recognizes that between Callas whole attitude and her powers she is gonna end up in the hero gig at some point so she trains the shit out of her, pulls every string she has, and brings in a shit ton of guest star teachers because she got attached and wants to be sure Calla can protect herself. 
> 
>  
> 
> Personal stuff  
> Will almost certainly be writing a fic focusing on that as well, but I'm in kinda a bad situation that involves living in a shed over the winter in the mountains of norther colorado so tbh I will probably not be able to do much writing once the cold sets in without serious finagling as most of my hours in shack sweet shack will probably be spent trying to figure out the least dangerous way to set up some kind of heater that won't die with the power


End file.
